


eternity is the wait between breaths

by zxanthe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, i have a lot of feelings about time players, this is the first thing i've finished in a while, warning for mild gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zxanthe/pseuds/zxanthe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>ticktock ticktock,</i> dead kids tell no tales and time stops for no man. Dave and Aradia know this all too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eternity is the wait between breaths

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from [ this song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMmkKhYAU7s)  
> please give it a listen!

**[tick]**

On the table the body smiles at you with two mouths: the one on its face and the one slashed across its neck. Both mock you wetly, redly. One pale freckled arm lolls off the edge. Blood slips in slow graceful trickles down its length, hangs quivering at the tips of the fingers before falling to the earth with quiet _tick-tocks._ Nothing about the body suggests repose; it is all interrupted action, agony, a marionette whose strings were cut abruptly midway through the show.

well damn, Dave Strider says.  
mind doing a dude a favor and straightening his shades  
shits disgraceful

Instead you reach out and pluck them from his face. Without his glasses he looks younger and older all at once, _different_. Vulnerability lurks in the shadows smeared fuzzily beneath his lashes, in the graceful, swooping lines of his eyebrows. Idly, you reach out and trace one of them with the pad of your thumb. This close you can see that he has freckles, strange little light brown spots spattered across his cheekbones. But his face is marred by bruises; blood is smeared around his mouth and his eyes rest half-open like the shutters of some long-abandoned house, vacant and unknowing.

i know im pretty megido  
face like mine could hang in the louvre and make the mona lisa herself cry because shell never look this good  
but time is dead kids so how bout you gimme back my shades and get moving kay

You just hum in reply, and your hand moves up to smooth his hair. There’s something almost tender in the gesture.

we have a little while, you say.  
cant you feel it?

**[tock]**

(In a dead timeline Dave Strider and Aradia Megido lie curled in a nest of blankets and talk about nothing while the universe falls to pieces in the background, all cracked glass and stickywarm rainbow blood)

**[tick]**

Time, time, what is time? You feel it constantly _,_ spiraling through your veins in myriad branching patterns that seem endless except they’re really, really _not,_ and it’s so easy to reach out and grab one, close your fingers around its desiccated not-pulse and give it a good hard tug. You are a Knight, it’s what you do; you dance across the threads of time like your sister with her needles. Hell, you might as well knit a fucking sweater while you’re at it.

Though this ability comes with a pretty steep price tag: you’ve died more times than you care to count. Yet you were always fascinated by dead things. You kept a collection of them in your room, birds, bugs, snakes and whatever else you could get your hands on, floating in little jars of formaldehyde, ageless and pristine and utterly untouchable by the heavy-handed inevitability of rot (or so it seemed). In retrospect it wasn’t the animals themselves that caught your interest, but their mortality, a mirror of your own. From a very young age you knew what death was and that one day it’d smother you with its black cloak of oblivion and it resonated through your being like the deep sonorous bong of a grandfather clock; you stared its solemn truth full in the face with your eyes wide open behind your shades. You would never admit it, not even to yourself, but you were scared shitless: heart-stopping, soul-consuming fear coupled with this morbid fascination, this irrational attraction. Now you devour it, devour time, devour death, traversing it in endless convoluted loops because the clock is ticking and it’s only – a matter – of _time_ before it all ends and there’s nothing more you can do.

 _( TICKTOCKTICKTOCK, _you feel the beat in your bones. You’re a musician at heart and it makes a bitter, stupid kind of sense now, of course you’d be good at mixing, dropping in samples at just the right moment, overlaying one song atop another to create a weird wonderful harmony, fading in and out, the constant thumping of the rhythm in your ears. How wonderfully natural and easy it felt, like sinking into a warm bath, like the beat of your heart kicking your ribs. You could spend hours, years behind your deck with a pair of cans over your ears and the world at your fingertips)

Aradia Megido hovers across from you in the blackness of space, a glowing coal with teeth, at once serene and thrumming with energy. She wasn’t kidding when she said she was _maid of time_ (ha, ha), you’ve seen her; she can hold a single moment in the palm of her hand for an eternity, a beginning and an end. Right now her music boxes hover in front of her, pretty crystal things, a useless formality, like your timetables, but here you are, the both of you, ready to drop some ill fucking beats just for the hell of it. You’ll subdivide this biz so fine like a skilled chef with a knife and some veggies, layer in some honeyed melodies like thick luscious sauce on crimped lasagna pasta. Shit’s almost fuckin’ pornographic in its decadence. Aradia smiles. on three? And without waiting for a reply her fingers start to dance across her music boxes and _wow,_ that’s delicious, now you’re cooking. You can’t help the smile that twitches at the corner of your mouth as you drop it like it’s hot, bass rhythm undercutting her initial melody in perfect sync. Then you add in a sample of her voice, and then her twinkling music boxes whir into a dizzying oblivion of shimmering arpeggios that serve as a backdrop and a compliment to your own rhymes. Shit’s so hot the kitchen has become a big ball of liquid fire at this point, sorry boss, this dish just couldn’t be controlled. When you drop in a sample of Karkat swearing at the top of his voice, glitched into rhythm, she actually laughs, a bright bell-noise that makes you wish you had a camera, to capture it and the accompanying look on her face as testament to this brief glittering moment of happiness.

(how arrogant you both are, playing with Time like children)

**[tock]**

In a different life, Aradia works at a hospital and Dave catches himself a bad break, so when he wakes up it’s all raw unfiltered sunlight and pain, god _damn,_ he can’t help the moan that escapes from between his lips. Then there’s footsteps and this Troll nurse with elaborate curved horns pops into view. She’s secretly amused by the look on his face, two parts groggy and three parts grimace smeared thick with a layer of confusion. His straw-colored hair is a bird’s nest. He’s gaunt and limber and achingly familiar.

you almost died again, she says, eyes sparkling.  
you seem to have a knack for getting into these situations

His eyes (red, like hers but somehow lighter, more luminous), flick to her, take her in, widen just a fraction before his arm lifts to cover them.

nice rack, he replies by way of greeting.  
hey have you seen my shades  
theyre my mask and im the phantom of the opera  
except without the weird kidnapper complex  
shits disgraceful  
you said that when you died the…hmm, seventh time, i think? she tells him, settling on the side of his bed and scribbling something on her clipboard.

goddamn girl more like the twenty-fifth  
from your perspective maybe, and she pulls his shades from her pocket and deposits them neatly atop his head.

(there is no blood dried in crackly droplets atop the lenses, not this time)

Silence falls. Dave’s IV bag catches the sunlight and gluts itself on it. For a while they breathe, just letting their lungs work while machines beep and other people bustle around the ward, exchanging words, thoughts, impressions, one second at a time like the drops of liquid plasma sliding down the tube and into Dave’s veins.

how do you tell if a timelines doomed? he asks after a long while.

When Aradia turns around, there’s a shimmer of gossamer red, right where wings would be. She shrugs, sliding off the bed.

you dont

**[tick]**

i just  
hey megido  
hey  
…  
…  
shhooosh?

Awkwardly, his hand comes to rest on top of your head, feather-light, hesitant. Your breath catches in your throat.

shit  
sorry  
i dont  
i didnt mean  
…  
i hope this isnt like crazy depraved  
like i just took your troll virginity or something  
…  
shit that was weird wasnt it  
ill stop now

no! It comes out more violently than you intended. Heat rises to your cheeks.

its fine  
youre fine  
i

And then you slide off the stool and unabashedly put your arms around him. Dave stiffens. His heart is a staccato hammer in his chest.

lets just  
stay here for a little while  
okay?

You say this into his shirt. Dave exhales. Beneath your touch his muscles loosen and his heart slows back down and he rests his chin atop your head and that just makes you hug him harder, holy crap, you know humans aren’t like trolls but could this be what you think it is? Then he starts rubbing your back, slowly, hesitant, and a part of your pan sort of goes all warm and calm and quiet.

In this state, you are bold, and the dream pours from your lips easily.

jesus  
yeah  
i honestly dont know what to say  
ive had some pretty fucked up nightmares but i think that one wins it  
congrats megido  
youve just won yourself a full scholarship to scream queen academy

You smile. it really wasnt that bad all things considered

ive had worse  
this one just really hit me for some reason

Dave makes a little noise somewhere between a snort and a huff.

what even are trolls  
wait dont answer that

The two of you stand like that in the dimness, breathing in stale recycled meteor air and each other’s smells, hurtling through uncharted space a million miles an hour with no way to stop. It’s the opposite of exhilarating, though; you contemplate this fact with a sort of deep calm suffused with contentment like moonlight.

thank you, you say quietly, much, much later.  
s’fine  
so like  
did we just get our pale on or what  
yes i believe that is what we did  
oh  
thats cool  
hey wanna watch a movie or something  
that is what you do after these things right  
mhm  
that is an excellent idea

The two of you fall asleep on the couch midway through _The Empire Strikes Back._ You are happier than you’ve been in a long while.

**[tock]**

She holds up a skull. check this out

nice  
hold on while i get my camera  
hurry up! my arms getting tired!  
nerd  
this shit takes time  
cant just take a fucking picture like some chump tourist on a ski vacation on pleb mountain  
this is art megido  
now hold still  
are you sure im the nerd? :)  
also i cant believe you just said the word pleb  
shhhh it was ironic  
dave is that position really necessary  
absolutely now shoosh youre ruining my concentration

The sun is bleeding violent color into the horizon like a wounded thing when they finally put down their tools. Dave has crossed from tanned to slightly burned, his arms and face dusted with red. He slouches against a rock, camera resting on his chest. Aradia flops onto her back with a contented sigh. The bones have been unearthed to the point of distinction from the rock, and they create small raised shadows in the glare of the sunset. Camp is a little ways away. The tents rustle gently in the breeze. The voices of tired archaeologists float towards them, signaling the end of the day. There is a smell of cooking food.

i feel like im luke skywalker and this is tatooine  
i mean look at all this goddamn sand  
you could build a boat and go for a ride  
maybe catch some rocks  
make a modest living  
what dyou think megido  
wanna give it a shot  
isnt that what we’re doing right now though? Aradia’s eyes are almost luminous in the dusk. just less nautically themed?  
wow you really know how to make a guy feel special  
youll live  
really now

He flickers. Beneath the sunburn he’s ripped open throat to navel, shades spattered with blood, skin deathly pale and waxy, eyes a glossy, milky white, staring at nothing. Aradia only smiles, the flesh of her face melting grotesquely, like candle wax, to reveal her black bones. Her horns lose their color and become chipped, her clothing turns to tatters. Dead, rotted things, the both of them. They behold each other in the silence of a tomb unopened for a thousand years. The desert melts away; they hover weightless in the blackness of space, suspended among countless distant glittering stars.

which dave are you? inquires the skull in Aradia’s melodious voice.

Dave shrugs, a hand going to press against his abdomen, keeping his insides from spilling down his front. Blood oozes between his fingers.

does it actually matter  
im just one more doomed dave  
one more dead kid offered up to the time god  
there really is no point in wondering anymore is there

Space wheels around them. Aradia moves closer. Her skeletal fingers find his.

**[tick]**

Aradia’s dead. The swords in her keep her pinned to the wall, hanging there silently like a butterfly in a display case. Her wings droop sadly. Her head lolls, blood trickling from her half-open mouth. It’s darker than yours, you notice, almost wine-colored, the finest vintage, bruised and glittering and impossibly old.

well?  
oh my god  
this has got to stop  
what do you mean?  
you know damn well what i mean  
this freaky death talk thing we do  
shit’s weirding me out  
you must become at ease with your own mortality dave  
death is something that happens to all of us  
by this stage in the game you shouldn’t be scared!  
jesus  
ive died before  
i know what it feels like  
im not scared  
no  
but youre not comfortable with it either  
not yet

Her eyes are blown wide, empty, yellow lamps that have gone out. They stare at nothing, fixed at a point beyond the horizon. You look up at her impassively, your broken sword hanging loosely from your hand.

She doesn’t move.

**[tock]**

The sun is setting. It saturates the sky with long sweeping brushstrokes of orange and violet and red shot through with gold, and those colors leak down to drench the city in liquid light. From the top floor they can see the people going about their business down below in the stretched shadows thrown by the buildings. They sit on the edge of the fire escape, barefoot, legs dangling between the bars, passing a cigarette between them. They are young and raw and _alive,_ and they glory in it, in their beating hearts and sweet supple bodies and limitless potential, the absence of shackles, this glorious opportunity.

brb  
gotta get some snacks

She blows out a plume of smoke and discards the butt over the edge before getting to her feet and leaning against the railing. A gentle breeze plays with the stray strands of hair coming out of her knot. She no longer has wings, but sometimes she wonders. Her eyes slide closed. Her feet stay firmly planted on the metal.

Oh well.

Aradia climbs back through the window. The apartment is a mess of pizza boxes and clothes and paperback adventure novels, of shitty swords and carefully preserved dead things and audio equipment. In one corner a skull stares sightlessly in silent exasperation. After a few moments’ consideration Aradia picks up Dave’s camera from the couch and climbs back outside. She snaps picture after picture of the sunset, of the way the buildings look with their windows like small suns ablaze with reflected light, of the people below, of Dave as he’s climbing through the window in boxers and a t-shirt, a large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in his arms.

hey hey radia  
whatre you doing with that  
trying to capture the moment!  
i want to be able to remember it

well shit, and he actually smiles when she snaps his picture a second time. When she gives it back Dave takes a few more, of the sky, of her striking silly poses and laughing, of the interior of their messy apartment through the open window, carefully adjusting the focus of the lens each time. She takes the opportunity to admire him, the way he moves, that certain graceful deliberateness born of years working with a blade. Tall and lean and freckled, Dave Strider is, sharp-edged like his sword. She comes up behind him and slides her arms up under his t-shirt.

woah there  
feeling a little frisky are we  
hey  
that reminds me  
i have a remix for you  
nice  
actually  
hold on

She raises her hands in the air. Time stops. The noises of the city are abruptly silenced. Red holograms of clock parts shimmer faintly in the air around the apartment. Dave whistles.

ooh miss megido ooh  
it seems ive been hit with a case of the vapors

She smiles. They climb back inside.

Dave powers up his laptop. The [song starts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dsftel7PxE) and immediately Aradia’s eyes go soft with recognition. It’s the song they played together as gods a thousand years ago in another universe, but simpler, sadder, slower. When the beat drops her eyes flutter closed and she begins dancing, a languid swaying of hips and shuffling of feet that has Dave oddly mesmerized until she opens her eyes and pulls him up to join her. He puts one hand on her waist and she takes his other and they dance slow and easy in their crowded living room, heedless of the clutter. Dave looks at her, at the faint maroon flush just visible beneath her gray skin, at her messy hair and laughing eyes and he marvels at how incredibly fucking fortunate he is to have landed this amazing girl, before she closes the distance between their faces and places her lips on his.

They make love on the couch unhurriedly, feasting on each other, for within their private hours the world outside ceases to matter. The sunset streams through the window, oddly thick, and ignites glowing islands in the dim apartment. Some of it lands on them, transforming their eyes into rubies and making the sweat on their bodies glitter. Aradia’s wild tangle of dark hair seems to absorb the light; Dave’s catches fire. The only sounds are them: breathing, whimpers, moans, murmured words, laughter. When Aradia comes with a soft cry the spell is broken; the noise of the city descends on them once more. Afterward they lie against each other, spent and utterly content, heated skin cooled by a gentle breeze coming in through the window. After a few minutes, Dave reaches for the bag of Doritos, temporarily forgotten on the coffee table. They share them and Aradia reminds Dave that they need to do the dishes.

Life goes on.

**[tick]**

In the end you lay side by side near the threshold of your new multiverse brought forth at the cost of so many wounds and anguish. Blood leaks from your mouths but only one of you is dead, for real this time. The body is silent, still, doesn’t talk to you when you look at it, doesn’t stir, doesn’t shift, and never will, no matter how hard you wish it would. It had to be that way, the both of you knew, and Sollux always told you that you were doomed from the start, that there was no other way it could be. And that’s fine, after all there can only be one Time player, but there is still a bitter tug in your heart as you stare at him, cracked shades and bloodied sword (unbroken and whole), the way his lips curve upward in a final satisfied smile because he won, the stupid idiot, conquered his insecurities and found _peace_ within himself and flew off to fight the sun like a ~~true hero~~ fucking piece of garbage. Lord English could not be defeated without a price. The game is won, but there are no cheers. Karkat crouches by the body, head in his hands.

CAN’T YOU GO BACK AND…AND FIX IT?  
there is nothing to fix  
this is the way it was always meant to be

He looks at you, then, and Dave’s strange moirail-sister looks at you, and the other two humans look at you, and the desolation in their gazes, the quiet plea coupled with the knowledge that you are absolutely right, pins you in place. Quite suddenly you are utterly and completely exhausted. You swallow dryly.

there is nothing i can do  
going back would doom the timeline and negate our victory  
this is the only way we can win  
please believe me when i say this  
i want to

How strange it is that you, the time players, would get the memories of your countless doomed selves, spread out across countless timelines and infinite universes, endless iterations of lives lived and loved and lost.

i want to more than anything

Carefully, you smooth his hair. It’s soft to the touch. Karkat’s lip twitches. Without another word you rise wearily to your feet and walk away, to where Sollux and Terezi sit with their feet dangling off the edge into the black nothingness of space, not talking. There is something impossibly old in Terezi’s face, in the downward curve of her mouth, in the emptiness of her glossy cherry eyes. Sollux leans back on his arms, lids pulled down over his empty sockets, breathing; when you put your head on his shoulder he puts his arm around you.

V1CTORY T4ST3S B1TT3RSW33T, Terezi says, and gives a great sniff. 

**[tock]**

(They were gods, once.)


End file.
